Thursday, August 26, 2010

The Richardson Police Department in partnership with the North Texas Auto Theft Task Force and UTD, will be offering free VIN etchings and conducting H.E.A.T. registrations on Friday, September 10, 2010. This is a pre‐National Night Out 2010 event.

Bring your car to UTD at 800 W. Campbell Rd. in Richardson, between 10am and 2pm to have your car’s VIN etched into each window. VIN etching is used to deter auto theft. Car thieves who steal cars for re‐sale or for parts will tend to avoid vehicles that have the glass etched with a VIN. VIN etching reduces the criminal’s profit, associated with replacing a vehicle’s windows and the windows themselves becoming worthless for resale.

The H.E.A.T. (Help End Auto Theft) registration program places a sticker on your vehicle and registers it in a statewide database used by law enforcement in Texas. H.E.A.T. registration allows Police to stop the vehicle if it is operating between the hours of 1:00am and 5:00am to determine if the driver is the owner. The event is conducted on a first come first serve basis and only takes minutes to complete and is free of charge.

The Richardson Police Department will also be collecting canned food donations for the Network of Community Ministries. If it should rain, the event will be rescheduled and details will be published at a later time.

Richardsonians (?) should be able to ride the Red line DART train, xfer to the Green line and step off at Fair Park if the Green line opens on Sep 17th as planned. Looks like any station between Pearl and West End will allow transfer between the lines, but do your own homework.

Note: if applicable, have your CHL/DL visible before the Fairgrounds guard wands you. I usually hold them up, splayed, by my face at eye level so the guard can immediately grasp the scenario; no ambiguity. Sometimes they will wave you through. Sometimes they will direct you over to DPD who waves you through or makes small talk. No drama. Security has already been briefed to some degree, but handling it this way will make everyone's life easier.

Turns out they are called Bookletters on the main RPL page. The only other link to the email list page is on the left menu of the Calendar of Events page where they are called newsletters. I wonder if the lists would see more subscribers if they were called something more intuitive.

So I selected the ones I wanted and subbed. Each list sent its own "welcome" msg without requiring an opt-in. A bit sloppy, but better than nothing. I think email lists are an effective and cheap way to reach the residents.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Just doing this off my low-quality recording from Ch16, so I am not sure who the first voice was. I think the speaker was recognized as Bob before he spoke, so this would mean Macy or Townshend.

The following exchange suggests that Old School ways of governance have a certain amount of inertia. The CM was quick with the damage control. I don't think it's scandalous or evidence of shady doings, but it does reveal a partiular style of thinking.

Bob: I wonder about the, uh, publicity nature of those organizations we do business with. You know, people will get on there and just... you know, all this "the city does business with so-and-so." Are there effects [unintelligible] get in any trouble with that kind of thing...

Keffler [cuts in quickly]: Uh. Uh. I wouldn't know what that would be, but... uh, we, uh, I mean, we, you know, we, award bids all the time and so it's... it's a very public process. [CM pivots and changes the redirects the conversation].

I will leave it to the reader to decide if the leadership wants transparency or just the appearance of transparency. I hope for the former.

I am reminded, however, of most city "art" museums. They unintentionally give evidence that the city was less interested in art than they were about being seen as the kind of city that has an art museum.

I have heard a possibly-related beltway joke --

There are two things you must do to be a Senator:1. get elected2. get re-elected